Unintended usages of a vehicle, such as a tractor trailer, include driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, driving of a vehicle when fatigued, driving of a stolen vehicle, deviating from a planned route, driving a vehicle into a restricted area, uncoupling a trailer at an unplanned location, and driving a vehicle in need of maintenance.
Driving of a vehicle by an impaired operator greatly increases the chance that the vehicle will be involved in an accident. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Standard #49 C.F.R. 392.3 requires fatigue impaired drivers to stop. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), one out of eight traffic fatalities in 1998 resulted from a collision with a large truck. Alcohol related fatalities accounted for 38% of all traffic fatalities in 1998. According to the Commercial Car Journal (CCJ) survey, 55% of drivers violate hours of service (HOS) rules by driving more than 10 hours without an 8 hour break. Stolen tractors and/or trailers cost fleet owners a large sum of money per occurrence. Vehicles may become unsafe when they are not properly maintained.
Prior art disclosures have dealt with monitoring vehicle drivers. Examples include detecting a drowsy driver by monitoring eyelid movement of the driver, detecting drowsiness by sensing meandering of a vehicle in a lane of a road, monitoring heart rate and skin vibrations to detect the mental condition of the driver, testing a drivers alertness by requiring the driver to move a turn signal lever in a sequence of requested directions, detecting intoxication by monitoring a driver's iris, monitoring acceleration and deceleration and steering irregularities to determine a drivers fitness.
Prior art disclosures have dealt with tampering with a trailer. It is known in the prior art to sense penetration into a trailer. A camera and sound recorder is used during theft. One prior art theft prevention system monitors doors and alerts a central control.
It is known in the prior art to track travel of a long haul truck within an acceptable rectangular zone and report exceptions to a central control or generate an exception report.
What is needed is an interactive monitoring system that detects conditions that indicate unauthorized vehicle usage and provides for a response to the detected conditions that assures that the usage is not unauthorized or shuts the vehicle down.